The study found that a higher number of firearm laws in a state is associated with a lower rate of firearm fatalities in the state, overall and for suicides and homicides individually.

However the study could not determine cause-and-effect relationships because of limitations inherent in the study design.

States with more intensive regulation of gun ownership, sales, and storage tended to have lower rates of gun-related fatalities, researchers said.

With state-level gun laws from 2007 to 2010 rated on a "legislative strength" scale, states in the top quartile had gun-related fatality rates more than 40% lower than states in the bottom quartile (adjusted incidence rate ratio 0.58, 95% CI 0.37 to 0.92), according to Eric Fleegler, MD, MPH, of Boston Children's Hospital, and colleagues.

The lower rates applied both to homicides and suicides, they reported online in JAMA Internal Medicine.

However, the researchers cautioned that their "ecological and cross-sectional" study design cannot establish a cause-and-effect relationship between gun regulation and deaths.

"Further studies are necessary to define the nature of this association," they wrote.

In an accompanying commentary, Garen Wintemute, MD, MPH, of the University of California Davis, also stressed the study's methodological limitations.

"Ecological studies of association are inherently weak ... [and] correlation does not imply causation," he wrote. He also pointed to other flaws in the study design, including its reliance on anti-gun organizations for data on state gun legislation.

"In the end, [the study authors] provide no firm guidance," wrote Wintemute. "Do the laws work, or not? If so, which ones? Should policymakers enact the entire package? Some part? Which part?"

This “news” was already announced on my local stations this morning. Soros’ organizations must have been working all night to make sure this fluff (read: BS) made it down to the local level this morning.

4
posted on 03/07/2013 4:53:16 AM PST
by liberalh8ter
(If Barack has a memory like a steel trap, why can't he remember what the Constitution says?)

Generally, based on US and international experience, stronger gun laws are also associated with higher rates of non-gun violence and of overall violence, including homicide. In effect, life becomes harder and more dangerous for potential victims when ownership and access to guns is restricted because weaker and isolated people are then more readily preyed upon by criminals.

Moreover, the study does not account for the effect of concealed carry laws, which significantly reduce violent crime. In a back of the envelope analysis I did as to Florida, I found that official crime statistics suggested that, after Florida adopted concealed carry, the rate of violent crime declined by a about a third more than the general national rate of decline.

R. Lott, Jr.: States with the largest increases in gun ownership also have the largest drops in violent crimes. Thirty-one states now have such lawscalled shall-issue laws. These laws allow adults the right to carry concealed handguns if they do not have a criminal record or a history of significant mental illness.

Question: It just seems to defy common sense that crimes likely to involve guns would be reduced by allowing more people to carry guns. How do you explain the results?

Lott: Criminals are deterred by higher penalties. Just as higher arrest and conviction rates deter crime, so does the risk that someone committing a crime will confront someone able to defend him or herself. There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rateas more people obtain permits there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent, and robberies by over 2 percent.

Concealed handgun laws reduce violent crime for two reasons. First, they reduce the number of attempted crimes because criminals are uncertain which potential victims can defend themselves. Second, victims who have guns are in a much better position to defend themselves.

Question: What is the basis for these numbers?

Lott: The analysis is based on data for all 3,054 counties in the United States during 18 years from 1977 to 1994.

Question: Your argument about criminals and deterrence doesnt tell the whole story. Dont statistics show that most people are killed by someone they know?

Lott: You are referring to the often-cited statistic that 58 percent of murder victims are killed by either relatives or acquaintances. However, what most people dont understand is that this acquaintance murder number also includes gang members killing other gang members, drug buyers killing drug pushers, cabdrivers killed by customers they picked up for the first time, prostitutes and their clients, and so on. Acquaintance covers a wide range of relationships. The vast majority of murders are not committed by previously law-abiding citizens. Ninety percent of adult murderers have had criminal records as adults.

Question: But how about children? In March of this year [1998] four children and a teacher were killed by two school boys in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Wont tragedies like this increase if more people are allowed to carry guns? Shouldnt this be taken into consideration before making gun ownership laws more lenient?

Lott: The horrific shooting in Arkansas occurred in one of the few places where having guns was already illegal. These laws risk creating situations in which the good guys cannot defend themselves from the bad ones. I have studied multiple victim public shootings in the United States from 1977 to 1995. These were incidents in which at least two or more people were killed and or injured in a public place; in order to focus on the type of shooting seen in Arkansas, shootings that were the byproduct of another crime, such as robbery, were excluded. The effect of shall-issue laws on these crimes has been dramatic. When states passed these laws, the number of multiple-victim shootings declined by 84 percent. Deaths from these shootings plummeted on average by 90 percent, and injuries by 82 percent.

For other types of crimes, I find that both children as well as adults are protected when law-abiding adults are allowed to carry concealed handguns.

Finally, after extensively studying the number of accidental shootings, there is no evidence that increasing the number of concealed handguns increases accidental shootings. We know that the type of person who obtains a permit is extremely law-abiding and possibly they are extremely careful in how they take care of their guns. The total number of accidental gun deaths each year is about 1,300 and each year such accidents take the lives of 200 children 14 years of age and under. However, these regrettable numbers of lives lost need to be put into some perspective with the other risks children face. Despite over 200 million guns owned by between 76 to 85 million people, the children killed is much smaller than the number lost through bicycle accidents, drowning, and fires. Children are 14.5 times more likely to die from car accidents than from accidents involving guns.

Question: Wouldnt allowing concealed weapons increase the incidents of citizens attacking each other in tense situations? For instance, sometimes in traffic jams or accidents people become very hostilescreaming and shoving at one another. If armed, might people shoot each other in the heat of the moment?

Lott: During state legislative hearings on concealed-handgun laws, possibly the most commonly raised concern involved fears that armed citizens would attack each other in the heat of the moment following car accidents. The evidence shows that such fears are unfounded. Despite millions of people licensed to carry concealed handguns and many states having these laws for decades, there has only been one case where a person with a permit used a gun after a traffic accident and even in that one case it was in self-defense.

Question: Violence is often directed at women. Wont more guns put more women at risk?

Lott: Murder rates decline when either more women or more men carry concealed handguns, but a gun represents a much larger change in a womans ability to defend herself than it does for a man. An additional woman carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for women by about 3 to 4 times more than an additional man carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for men.

Question: Arent you playing into peoples fears and prejudices though? Dont politicians pass these shall-issue laws to mollify middle-class white suburbanites anxious about the encroachment of urban minority crime?

Lott: I wont speculate about motives, but the results tell a different story. High crime urban areas and neighborhoods with large minority populations have the greatest reductions in violent crime when citizens are legally allowed to carry concealed handguns.

Question: What about other countries? Its often argued that Britain, for instance, has a lower violent crime rate than the USA because guns are much harder to obtain and own.

Lott: The data analyzed in this book is from the USA. Many countries, such as Switzerland, New Zealand, Finland, and Israel have high gun-ownership rates and low crime rates, while other countries have low gun ownership rates and either low or high crime rates. It is difficult to obtain comparable data on crime rates both over time and across countries, and to control for all the other differences across the legal systems and cultures across countries. Even the cross country polling data on gun ownership is difficult to assess, because ownership is underreported in countries where gun ownership is illegal and the same polls are never used across countries.

Question: This is certainly controversial and there are certain to be counter-arguments from those who disagree with you. How will you respond to them?

Lott: Some people do use guns in horrible ways, but other people use guns to prevent horrible things from happening to them. The ultimate question that concerns us all is: Will allowing law-abiding citizens to own guns save lives? While there are many anecdotal stories illustrating both good and bad uses of guns, this question can only be answered by looking at data to find out what the net effect is.

16
posted on 03/07/2013 5:25:51 AM PST
by Chickensoup
(200 million unarmed people killed in the 20th century by Leftist Totalitarian Fascists)

The top two states for violent crime are Louisiana and Mississippi (both of which have fairly lax gun laws).

BUT a huge portion of the crime in those states is directly attributable to New Orleans, which has the highest rates of violent crime and homicide in the country. It has nothing to do with the gun laws (in fact, much of NOLA has been disarmed) but with the corrupt and incompetent law enforcement organizations in and around New Orleans.

Third is New Mexico, where much of the violence is due to spillover from Mexico due to drugs and illegals crossing the border.

Fourth is Maryland, hardly a gun friendly state.

The murder rate of a state has a more direct correlation to the presence of large cities and corrupt Democratic administration of those cities, including restrictions on firearms in those large cities (see: Detroit, Chicago, DC, Baltimore, NOLA, LA, etc)

Totally ridiculous talking point. The thing that matters is not “FIREARMS Deaths”, it is TOTAL deaths by violence. Best data is that when firearms usage by honest citizens is forcibly reduced, TOTAL deaths go UP.

Deat is dead, whether by firearm, baseball bat, rope, or fists and feet.

(Article) In an accompanying commentary, Garen Wintemute, MD, MPH, of the University of California Davis, also stressed the study's methodological limitations. "Ecological studies of association are inherently weak ... [and] correlation does not imply causation," he wrote. He also pointed to other flaws in the study design, including its reliance on anti-gun organizations for data on state gun legislation.

Johns Hopkins University has done "study" work for a number of gun-grabbing NGO's for 20+ years now, sifting data to find statistical correlations that can enable politically useful statements which are then dispensed to Media by the grabber NGO's.

This isn't about "studying" anything or building an argument on solid foundations. It's about supplying one-liners to demagogues, and Johns Hopkins has found it a worthwhile sideline to their more serious research.

This is a Right, so it really shouldn't matter. Compare the firearm murder rate in North Dakota with Washington, DC. Roughly the same sized populations, with North Dakota's firearm laws at roughly the opposite end of the spectrum from D.C.

That data alone would refute the author's conclusions.

26
posted on 03/07/2013 9:07:15 PM PST
by Smokin' Joe
(How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)

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